Editing Gopher (protocol) (section)

====Item types====
In a Gopher menu's source code, a one-character code indicates what kind of content the client should expect. This code may either be a digit or a letter of the alphabet; letters are [[case-sensitive]].

The [[technical specification]] for Gopher, {{IETF RFC|1436}}, defines 14 item types. The later gopher+ specification defined an additional 3 types.<ref>{{cite web |title=Gopher+ protocol specification |url=https://github.com/jgoerzen/pygopherd/blob/master/doc/standards/Gopher%2B.txt |publisher=[[GitHub]]}}</ref> A one-character code indicates what kind of content the client should expect. Item type {{code|3}} is an [[error code]] for [[exception handling]]. Gopher client authors improvised item types {{code|h}} (HTML), {{code|i}} (informational message), and {{code|s}} ([[sound file]]) after the publication of RFC 1436. Browsers like Netscape Navigator and early versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer would prepend the item type code to the selector as described in {{IETF RFC|4266}}, so that the type of the gopher item could be determined by the url itself. Most gopher browsers still available, use these prefixes in their urls.

{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" {{partial|Canonical types}}
|-
| {{okay|'''0'''}} || [[Text file]]
|-
| {{okay|'''1'''}} || Gopher submenu
|-
| {{okay|'''2'''}} || [[CCSO Nameserver]]
|-
| {{okay|'''3'''}} || Error code returned by a Gopher server to indicate failure
|-
| {{okay|'''4'''}} || [[BinHex]]-encoded file (primarily for [[Macintosh]] computers)
|-
| {{okay|'''5'''}} || [[DOS]] file
|-
| {{okay|'''6'''}} || [[uuencoded]] file
|-
| {{okay|'''7'''}} || Gopher [[full-text search]]
|-
| {{okay|'''8'''}} || [[Telnet]]
|-
| {{okay|'''9'''}} || [[Binary file]]
|-
| {{okay|'''+'''}} || Mirror or alternate server (for [[Load balancing (computing)|load balancing]] or in case of primary server [[downtime]])
|-
| {{okay|'''g'''}} || [[GIF]] file
|-
| {{okay|'''I'''}} || [[Image file]]
|-
| {{okay|'''T'''}} || [[Telnet 3270]]
|-
! colspan="2" {{partial|gopher+ types}}
|-
| {{okay|''':'''}} || [[Bitmap|Bitmap image]]
|-
| {{okay|''';'''}} || [[Video file format|Movie file]]
|-
| {{okay|'''<'''}} || [[Audio file format|Sound file]]
|-
! colspan="2" {{unofficial|Non-canonical types}} 
|-
|style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''d''' || Doc. Seen used alongside PDF and .doc files
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''h''' || [[HTML]] file
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''i''' || Informational message, widely used.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/directory-entry-says-what-current.html|title=Directory entry says what? Current Gopher type field types|date=5 March 2019}}</ref>
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''p''' || image file "(especially the [[Portable Network Graphics|PNG]] format)"
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''r''' || document RTF file ("[[Rich Text Format]]")
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''s''' || [[Sound file]] (especially the [[WAV]] format)
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''P''' || [[PDF]] (Portable Document Format) file
|-
| style="background:#adffe6; text-align:center" | '''X''' || [[XML]] (Extensible Markup Language) file
|}

Here is an example gopher session where the user requires a gopher menu ({{code|/Reference}} on the first line):

<pre>
/Reference
1CIA World Factbook     /Archives/mirrors/textfiles.com/politics/CIA    gopher.quux.org 70
0Jargon 4.2.0   /Reference/Jargon 4.2.0 gopher.quux.org 70      +
1Online Libraries       /Reference/Online Libraries     gopher.quux.org 70     +
1RFCs: Internet Standards       /Computers/Standards and Specs/RFC      gopher.quux.org 70
1U.S. Gazetteer /Reference/U.S. Gazetteer       gopher.quux.org 70      +
iThis file contains information on United States        fake    (NULL)  0
icities, counties, and geographical areas.  It has      fake    (NULL)  0
ilatitude/longitude, population, land and water area,   fake    (NULL)  0
iand ZIP codes. fake    (NULL)  0
i       fake    (NULL)  0
iTo search for a city, enter the city's name.  To search        fake    (NULL) 0
ifor a county, use the name plus County -- for instance,        fake    (NULL) 0
iDallas County. fake    (NULL)  0
</pre>

The gopher menu sent back from the server, is a sequence of lines each of which describes an item that can be retrieved. Most clients will display these as [[hypertext]] links, and so allow the user to navigate through gopherspace by following the links.<ref name="wwwunleashed"/>
This menu includes a text resource (itemtype {{code|0}} on the third line), multiple links to submenus (itemtype {{code|1}}, on the second line as well as lines 4–6) and a non-standard information message (from line 7 on), broken down to multiple lines by providing dummy values for selector, host and port.